People increasingly want products and services tailored to them. Manufacturers and service providers often meet this need by providing options from which people choose. For example, a manufacturer of portable music players (e.g., an iPod-brand music player) may provide the player in ten colors. The purchaser gets some level of personalization by choosing a color she likes. If the product is popular, then other people, perhaps millions of other people, pick the same color. And so, in reality, the level of customization is limited. Perhaps the manufacturer gives purchasers the option of engraving the music player. For more time and money, the customer is able to personalize the player a bit more. This example shows that a manufacturer of music players, like other manufacturers and service providers, must make a compromise between providing a high level of customization, with its attendant costs (typically in increased time to manufacture, and more money), and a low level of customization, which may not be what the customer wants or needs. At the margin, a manufacturer cannot provide a unique and highly customized product tailored to each individual customer. This is especially true if there are many customers, each one wanting their chosen product quickly, and at high quality.
So it is with the death-care and related industries. Many customers, including, for example, survivors, persons making arrangements for their own deaths—whether imminent or not, and persons foreseeing their own absence, seek to buy a container, for various purposes relating to absence, and one that is uniquely theirs (with death being the ultimate absence; yet, as Alexander Pope wrote: “Say, is not absence death to those who love?”).
Thus providers of urns, temporary coffins, memory boxes, keepsake containers, and the like seek to offer different options from which people choose. Though this may not always be the case. Temporary coffins, for example, are often used to contain the body of a loved one prior to cremation. Given their temporary nature, and the fact that the temporary coffin is incinerated with the body, the level of personalization offered by manufacturers or service providers for such containers is likely low, or non-existent. For the same reason, temporary urns—those used to hold the ashes of the deceased prior to sprinkling (i.e., dispersing the ashes into the environment)—may not be highly customizable.
Other containers, such as keepsake containers, memory boxes, or urns, show a range of customization. For those having money and time, a skilled artisan can be engaged to carve, sculpt, paint, or otherwise create a unique container. Most people, however, lack the resources necessary for this kind of personalization. For those needing a product quickly, or who choose not to spend large sums, the available options for customization are generally limited. Typically such customers leaf through a catalogue, or Internet Web pages, and select a design. Perhaps the customer is given the option of attaching a sentiment to, or engraving a sentiment on, the selected design. In some cases the customer may choose to have the picture of a loved one attached to the chosen container.
While the preceding approaches provide different levels of personalization, there remains a need for personalized, affordable containers including, for example, urns, temporary coffins, and boxes for memorabilia, that people can design and view before purchasing; and ways of making such containers.